Blackheart
by bearsbeetsbattlestargalactica
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Birdie Elian doesn't make a very good witch - as a Muggleborn, she feels like an intruder in a world that she wasn't supposed to be a part of in the first place. But as her sixth year at Hogwarts rolls around, and strange events transpire, Birdie realizes that she may be more a part of the Wizarding World than she knew. Marauders-Era.
1. 1: A Shove in the Wrong Direction

**A/N: This is the beginning of a new Marauder's Era story that I'm writing. I've never really written HP fic before, at least not more than a one-shot, and neither on this account nor in years, but there's a first try for everything. Please review and give me feedback-constructive criticism is _always_ appreciated!**

 **Shout-out to Rosestream, my fabulous beta reader!**

 **Rating: T**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Harry Potter (though it'd be nice if I did), and I don't own the image, either. Don't take me off the site, please.**

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Chapter 1

 **A Shove in the Wrong Direction**

 _Birdie_

I HADN'T INTENDED on coming back. At least, not really.

It wasn't something that I'd agonized over, or something that had kept me up late at night, eyes wide open in a lucid nightmare. I hadn't announced my plans with great fanfare, or made my friends throw me the going-away party of a lifetime.

I hadn't even made the decision until I came home for the summer. There was always something about arriving back in the states after so many months away. When I was little, I used to dream of wandering out into the great unknown—walking through the wardrobe hand-in-hand with the Pevensies, so to speak—but it was different in reality. Being in a foreign country, a foreign world, of wizards and witches and a war I couldn't possibly hope to understand, wore on me in ways I couldn't anticipate.

I missed things about home, back in America. Home was a miserable experience, but there were things that I forgot to hate when I was at Hogwarts. Like, for instance, how my mother always put out her cigarettes in her coffee cups, and every time I did the dishes, I got ashes all over my hands. I hated the smell of tobacco, always had, ever since my uncle was smoking a cigar in the sitting room and dropped it, lighting the carpet on fire. Something about the bitter scent triggered dormant fears.

And yet when I was at Hogwarts I'd long for my palms to smell of nicotine, not snakeweed and armadillo bile, parchment and ink. Wizarding-world smells, even though anybody that came out of the Divination classroom always reeked of patchouli. I supposed that was American enough.

But when I arrived home after the end of fifth year, pushed open the creaky door to my battered blue farmhouse, stepped inside with my heavy suitcase and my used books with the dog-eared pages, the whole house filled with the aroma of sadness and wilted hydrangeas, I knew that I didn't want to go back to Hogwarts.

There were so many reasons. There was a war on, for one; Voldemort was at large and growing more powerful every day. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was becoming less and less a secret lurking fear of the dark and more and more a very real terror of broad daylight. I was getting so tired of people like Avery and Mulciber hissing _filthy Mudblood_ at me in the hallways or hexing me just because I hadn't been born inbred and crazy.

For another, there was always a part of me that hadn't quite clicked in the wizarding world. I didn't know why, but it had always been true, ever since I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed eleven-year-old. Oh, I played a half-decent game of Quidditch and managed to earn the title of Prefect fifth year because I, unlike most of my peers, was not obsessed with causing havoc in the hallways, and my grades were above average, holding true to my Ravenclaw name.

But it was like a jigsaw piece you were trying to fit into the wrong spot on the puzzle. By all appearances, it looked as if it should snap into place there; the colors were right, the pegs lined up. Must be a manufacturing error, you thought, until you found the right piece and saw what a true fit really looked like.

And then there was Alex, left at home to fend for himself with our mother. He didn't complain—that was his nature. But it couldn't have been a pleasant existence, budgeting what money our father had left us when he died, playing nursemaid to our mother with her empty pill bottles, struggling to find his own niche in the world.

I'd just stood there in the front hallway, in the little blue house that had been in our family for generations, and stared at the vase of droopy hydrangeas on top of the ancient, out-of-tune upright piano, a relic from past generations, ivory keys worn and unplayed. And suddenly, I felt as if my spell books and pewter cauldron were weighing me down like sandbags strapped to my ankles.

For a moment, I'd fantasized about going into town, buying a big wooden chest at the thrift store, one with a really nifty lock. In would go my books, my wand, the essays and exams that I'd saved, my Quidditch supplies, everything that stank of magic.

Without ceremony, I'd shove the chest under my bed, wear the key around a string on my neck, and put away that period of my life, compartmentalize it. I'd gotten my O.W.L.s, should I ever want to return to that world. But I had a feeling I wouldn't be needing that key ever again.

So when my Hogwarts letter arrived in August, Dumbledore writing to inform me cheerfully that I was in fact invited back to Hogwarts for sixth year, and that my slot as a Ravenclaw Prefect was still mine if I so chose, I regarded it with a tinge of sadness and nostalgia, but no regret. This was what I wanted to do. I was sure. If anything, the letter had cemented my plan of action.

Sitting at the kitchen table that Sunday morning, sipping absentmindedly at a cup of coffee, Alex regarded the envelope with a downward tug to his mouth. "That's it?" He didn't have to specify: we both knew.

"Yeah." I pushed it to the side, folding it up so I couldn't see the emerald ink glinting accusingly at me in the sunlight. "That's it."

His shoulders slumped a bit. Alex wasn't usually one to get discouraged; it was an odd expression on him. In our depression-ridden family, he was an odd egg; a cheerful black sheep if ever there was one.

We were twins, and though we had the same appearance—dark eyes, dark hair, dark brows, olive skin—our personalities were different as could be, night and day. I might have been moody, type-A, overly compulsive about everything from my eating habits to how I organized my desk, but Alex was easygoing. He even looked the part of a hippie: tie-dyed t-shirt, long hair, hoop earring dangling from his right ear, a Grateful Dead tattoo that he'd gotten illegally on a vacation to Boston visible on his bicep. (Despite his best efforts, he'd never quite convinced me to like, or even tolerate, that band.)

"When should we send you off, then?" he said. "Do you want a few days in London before you're set to leave, or—"

I cleared my throat, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Actually," I said, "I don't… I don't think that I'll be going back to Hogwarts this year."

Alex blinked. "You have to."

My eyebrows rose nearly to the fringe of my hair. "What?"

"I just mean…" He waved his hands, words coming slowly to him. "You have to, alright? That's your thing. You're Birdie, you're a witch, you go to a magical school full of other magical people."

I traced the rim of my coffee cup, hesitating. "I know. I was just thinking that… maybe I don't want to be."

"Isn't being a witch kind of a genetic thing? It's not like there's an on-off switch." His forehead creased. "There's not an on-off switch, right?"

"No, of course not, but there doesn't have to be," I said, exasperated. "You can live a perfectly normal life and still be a witch, Al."

He shook his head, as if he were seeing me for the first time. "Yeah, but why would you want to? Look, I know I can't hope to understand all of this, but isn't being magic kind of a good thing? Amazing, even?"

"It's not that simple."

"How? Please, explain it to me. I'm trying my best here."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I don't know that I can."

Alex nodded, his jaw set. "Fine." A beat, before he resumed talking, as I somehow knew he would. "But Birdie, for Christ's sake, I know that I can't walk a mile in your shoes—I don't even know your sizing system, let alone your size—but you can't just stroll away from this whole incredible life just because you feel… misplaced, or something."

"Alex-"

"No, listen to me. I know that you think that I'm miserable here, all alone, but I'm not. And d'you know why?" When I didn't answer, he plowed ahead. "The fact that I know you're at school, living this incredible life, keeps me going. Don't come back to Washington, Birdie, if only for my sake. We've gotten you through this far. Don't turn tail and run now, because you'll live to regret it."

"You don't know that," I said stubbornly.

"But I do," he argued. "If you want to quit after you've graduated from Hogwarts, fine, that's one thing. But at least stick it out until then."

"Two more years?" I shook my head. "No. No way."

"Please, Birdie. I know you. Please don't do this."

Something inside of me crumbled at the pitiful look on his face, at the pleading in his eyes. He'd gotten the short end of the stick, after all. I'd gotten the magic powers and the smarts while he was stuck with a Suzy-Sunshine disposition and our disaster of a mother.

I picked up the letter, skimming it, the scent of potent ink wafting up from the parchment. _Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6. Advanced Potion-Making._ Without even looking up, I said, "One more year. If I still want to come back home after that, I can. Agreed?"

Alex chewed on that for a minute before reluctantly nodding. "Agreed."

Not that I'd ever really had a choice in the first place. My brother might be cheerful, a tie-dyed hippie spirit at his core, but he knew how to shove. He shoved our mother out of her bed, he shoved her cigarettes and pocket-sized bottles of booze into the dumpster. He shoved me back into Hogwarts, back into the supposedly whimsical realm of wands and muttered incantations.

For better or for worse, I couldn't say. But he did it anyway, because above all else, despite his tree-lover motto, he was not a pacifist. He thought he knew what was better for people and he went with that, and most of the time, he was right.

Yet, as the end of August approached and I hauled my dusty suitcase out from underneath my bed, I couldn't help feeling that this time, he might just be wrong.

* * *

I did all the normal things. I owl-ordered my school supplies from Diagon Alley, with a promise I'd be there to pick it up on August thirty-first. I packed my bags, stuffing in my clothes and my books, poor annotated, worn and over-loved things.

I did it all with a sense of foreboding. Usually when I started to pack I felt excited. I'd be going off to Hogwarts again, away from the sticks of rural America. I was getting ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime, all the way across the Atlantic. I'd be attending a magical school in the moors of Scotland, for Pete's sake, instead of attending the shitty public school with Alex and consuming copious amounts of marijuana just to make life bearable.

But this time, all I could do was wistfully imagine being one of those teenagers, living a normal life for once. Because Hogwarts? It wasn't normal. I'd been bewitched by the glitz and glamor and sparks at first, but the initial wonder was wearing off at a precipitous rate. Living in a constantly exciting, enchanting world had its drawbacks.

Sometimes I longed for mud and dirt.

On the morning that I was set to leave, my mother dragged herself out of bed. She stood in the kitchen as I double-checked the straps on my trunk, hands fidgeting and trembling beneath her watchful supervision. She made quite a picture, my mother, in her nubby terrycloth bathrobe, a cigarette dangling from her knobby fingers at six-thirty in the morning. She watched me wordlessly, inhaling and exhaling gray smoke.

"I know you don't want to go back this year," she said.

I was so surprised to hear her speak that for a second I thought I must've misheard her, but one look at her face told me otherwise. "What?"

"I know you don't want to go back," she said, taking a drag. _Inhale_. "It's a decent thing you're doing for your brother." _Exhale._ "Sometimes…" She trailed off. "Sometimes in life we're forced to play a part we're not suited for. It should be your brother, but it's not."

She looked at me for a long time, gaze opaque. She was once a beautiful woman, my mother, or so I imagined. She held the morose beauty of a dried flower petal—an empty echo of former full bloom. Now she was sallow, her gray eyes haunted, her hair straggly and soot-colored. But I saw the outlines of a pretty girl in her cheekbones, the curve of her neck.

"We're cast whether we like it or not," she said. Exhale. "The only thing you can do is play your part. And that means going back to Hogwarts."

I reared back, stung. "How do you know Alex is supposed to be the one?"

"I know because your brother is always going to be a martyr," she replied, without missing a beat. "It's a role I've forced him into." _Inhale._

"Doesn't seem particularly fair."

"Life isn't fair, Birdie," my mother said, putting out her cigarette in her lukewarm cup of coffee. "Don't tell me it's taken you this long to figure that out."

Without another word, she trekked upstairs, her bony feet padding on the floorboards. The sound of her inhales and exhales ricocheted down the narrow stairwell, smoke soaking into the drywall like bread sponging up honey.

In a beat, Alex appeared, keys jingling in his hand. "Ready?"

I swallowed, turning away from my mother. "Ready."

* * *

The plane ride was uneventful, save for the odd stares I got from people for bringing a seemingly odd broom across the ocean along with me. "Not all right in the head," I heard an old woman whisper to her husband, eying me.

When we touched down in London, I hailed a cab to the Leaky Cauldron, where I'd reserved a room for a couple of nights. After downing a somewhat subpar bowl of stew, I decided to walk around Diagon Alley for a bit. I was craving ice cream.

Diagon Alley was subdued in the evening, to say the least. It was August, but most of the brutal heat of the day had burnt off, leaving a violet sky and a warm breeze. I got a few odd looks in my Muggle clothing, but I couldn't find the energy to care. At least I'd saved up some coins from the previous year, though I guessed I'd have to go to Gringotts tomorrow and convert my dollars into Sickles.

I strolled along the narrow alleys, twiddling my favorite blue pen between my fingers. I hated being without something to write with, not that I was any writer. I just didn't like my thoughts to be fleeting. Sometimes I liked to remember them.

Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor was still packed and brimming with witches and wizards despite the late hour,. The line was out the door, but eying a boy's chocolate sundae and taking a whiff of the sugary-sweet aroma filtering out into the night air along with the cheery, rosy light, I figured it was worth it. After all, it wasn't as if I had anywhere better to be.

And that was when I heard the voices.

"I'm telling you, Moony, I really think it's going to be different this year."

I heard a derisive snort. "Well, after that promising end after the Defense O.W.L.s last year, who wouldn't be as idiotically optimistic as you are?"

"Exactly! Wait. Was that sarcasm?"

"Of course not, Prongs. I would _never._ "

With something of a resigned sigh, I pushed through the thicket of impatient customers, muttering "Sorry" and "Pardon" at every interval, leaving a grumbling wake of pissed-off bystanders behind me. Finally, I spotted two familiar heads of hair, one messy and jet-black, the other somewhat sandy and unkempt, though better maintained than the first.

"Look who we have here," I drawled, folding my arms and raising an eyebrow.

They both heard me and turned. Remus Lupin—the sandy-haired one—grinned. "Birdie! Nice to see you." Beside him, James Potter raised a hand in a half-wave.

"Nice to see you, too." I eyed the line—they were nearer the front than I was. "Jesus, how long have the two of you been standing here?"

"'Bout an hour, I reckon," said James. "Maybe longer. Florean's off tonight, and his daft daughter's taken over for the moment."

"Perfect." I sighed, dragging a hand through my hair.

"You look tired," James said, though Remus elbowed him rather savagely and muttered something that rhymed with big.

I laughed. "It's alright. I just got off the plane from America a few hours ago, and I'm still jet-lagged."

Remus cocked his head, eyes brightening curiously. "That's right. I always forget you live in the states, for some reason."

"Don't know how you could miss it, with my twangy accent," I said, drawing out the last few words in order to give a pretty fair imitation of a southern hillbilly.

He chuckled. "S'ppose that's true."

"Are you two here alone, or are Thing Three and Thing Four going to appear on the sidelines any second now?" I asked.

James shrugged. "We were with Padfoot at some point, but he started talking to a girl, so we let them be. I'm sure he'll join up with us again at some point."

I rolled my eyes. "Predictable."

"Did I hear my name?"

All three of our heads swiveled to see Sirius Black strutting through the doors, hands in his pocket, mouth quirked up in a grin. He really did have a strut, I thought: there was no other word for it, except for perhaps swagger. Arrogant and more trouble than he was worth, in my opinion, though my best friend, Lyddie, begged to differ.

I set my jaw. I'd never really gotten along with Black. Remus I liked well enough; we sometimes had Prefect rounds together, and while I got the feeling that there was something off about him, he was awfully funny, and kind. James I tolerated, though he was a bit too much of an arrogant attention whore for my liking, and Peter Pettigrew I pitied. But Sirius Black…

Well. I'd never really seen much of anything likeable about him, to tell the truth. I didn't hate him just because he liked to set off fireworks in the corridors—I'd leave a blanket disgust for the slightest rule-breaking to Lily Evans—but I didn't like him just because of his pretty face, either. He put James Potter's egotism to shame with his own, and God knew he treated girls like dirt. The only girl he'd ever dated for longer than a month was Marlene McKinnon, and I'd yet to see a more dysfunctional relationship. They had a sort of on-and-off thing going on, and while it might have Lyddie on the edge of her seat, I couldn't care less.

It wasn't that I disliked him, I decided, it was more than I didn't particularly care for him. It was complicated.

"And he returns," Remus remarked dryly. I sighed.

Sirius grinned, a dimple appearing in his cheek. He looked rumpled, I noticed; his shirt appeared as if he'd just shucked it on, and there was a definitive lipstick mark on his cheek. I refrained from rolling my eyes again with some difficulty.

"Has your life been desolate and lonely without me?" he said.

"Oh, yes, Padfoot," James said. "I've just been weeping endlessly since you rudely deserted us. I'm positively broken-hearted."

"Oh my God," I said. "No wonder you all keep to yourselves. It'd drive any sane person crazy."

Sirius's eyes lit up when he saw me. "Birdie!" he cried. "Pleasant to see you, too."

I shook my head. "Look, I'd better be going," I told them. "If I don't get some good sleep now, I'll live to regret it in the morning. See you all later." I lifted my hand in a wave, and they responded in kind.

Rushed? Quite possibly, but I wasn't in any hurry to stay and listen to Sirius Black's detailed description of mauling that girl. There were some things that a person just couldn't _un_ hear, and that was definitely one of them, ice cream be damned.

I walked back outside, having given up on the fruitless pursuit, and wrapped my arms around my shoulders. A quick breeze swept across the cobblestoned lanes, rustling streets signs and kicking up a stray piece of parchment. The ink glittered in the clementine light emanating from the neat shops lining the row.

"Birdie! Wait!"

I half-turned. I saw Sirius Black jogging after me, hands still tucked in his pockets. I made a face, and though I stopped, it was more out of common courtesy than any positive feelings.

"What is it, Black?"

He held out his hand. He was holding my pen, the one I'd been twiddling between my fingers in a pretty typical Birdie Elian gesture. "Here," he said. "You must've dropped in in the parlor. Remus and James said they saw you holding it."

I furrowed my brow ever-so-slightly, confused. "Thanks," I said, if hesitantly. I scooped up the pen and deposited it into my pocket. "You didn't have to do that. I… well, thanks."

"No need to look so surprised," he said, smiling a little. "I'm not a complete tosser, you know."

"I know," I said, a little too quickly.

He chuckled. "See you 'round."

And then, before I could say anything else, he was gone, strolling away, palms jammed back in his pockets, with the walk I couldn't call anything but a strut.

I stared at the pen, and then after Black again, wondering if there might be something to like about him after all.

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 **A/N: I hope you all enjoyed it! Please review and let me know what you think!**


	2. 2: The Mysteries of Life According to

**A/N: I'm back! (And very, very late. Sorry about that.) Anyway, some info on the story-the chapters alternate from Birdie to Sirius's perspective and back again, with the former in American English and the latter in British English; hence the different dialogue and spellings. This chapter is mostly exposition, like the first one, but I promise the next one will have some of the real plot line in it. (Cue the _ooohs_.) Anyway, I hope you like it, and please review!**

 **Note #1: Thanks go out to my fab beta-reader, Rosestream!**

 **Note #2: Thanks to all reviewers! You guys make my day!**

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Chapter 2

 **The Mysteries of Life According to Melania**

 _Sirius_

PRONGS AND MOONY were rather buzzed-off at me, though they didn't say so in as many words. Moony didn't, anyway; he had tact enough to keep quiet and satisfy himself with giving me a significant look (one I supposed I'd earned). Prongs was the expert at whinging, though Peter gave him a run for his Sickles.

'I'm sorry,' I said (again).

'We forgive you,' Moony said diplomatically (again).

'I don't,' Prongs said, without missing a beat (again).

I groaned. 'Merlin, you're a wanker. She was a pretty girl, alright? Last few days of summer and all. "Afternoon Delight."'

Remus made a face. 'That's revolting.'

'What happened to spending the last few days with your brill mates, anyway?' James said, a bit indignantly.

I pointed a finger at him. 'First of all, you're one to talk, with your wanking about Lily Evans. _Oh, Lily. I really think that I have a shot with her this year. La-da-da_.' Remus sniggered. 'Second of all, I've been living in the same house with you since July, and I'll be living in the same room with you lot for about nine months, give or take. I could use a little break, thanks.'

'Oh, sod off,' Prongs muttered.

I leaned against the wall of the ice cream parlour (done up in a truly horrifying cherub-patterned wallpaper) and smiled, eyes on the door. 'Who was that girl, anyway?'

'You knew her name,' Remus said.

'I know everybody's names; I make it my prerogative. But that doesn't mean that I know _them_. A name does not a person make, Moony.'

Remus turned his gaze heavenward, as if asking patience from the Powers that Be. 'She's a Ravenclaw Prefect in our year. Always hangs around with Lyddie Simmons, Anelle Clearwater, and Rick Edgecombe, that whole group. I think she's on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, actually.'

'Really?' I said, surprised. 'I don't remember seeing her on the field.'

'Nah, she just made it out of reserves after Columba Bulstrode graduated last year,' Prongs said. At our questioning glances, he shrugged. 'What? I make it my business to know these sorts of things, considering I was made captain this year.'

'Yeah, we know,' I said. 'Add that to the list of things you wank about.'

'Arsehole,' he muttered, shooting me a dark look.

'Anyway, why do you care? You're not setting your sights on her, are you?' Remus said, eyes widening in mute horror. 'Sirius, no. Birdie's nice. She brings me bars of Honeydukes when we have rounds together.'

'No, I'm not setting my sights on her,' I said. 'I don't go for Prefects. Too hard to corrupt.'

'You corrupted me,' Remus pointed out.

'We got to you early enough.'

'Anyway, she's a bit of a mess,' Prongs said. 'Completely compulsive. I sat next to her in Potions last year, and you should've seen how she organised her desk: all of her little supplies lined up just right, her wand at a perfect angle. She scrubbed the counter every five seconds, I swear.'

'Probably why she does so much better than you in class,' Remus said.

I snickered as Prongs made a face. 'He's got a point there.'

'Speaking of names,' Remus said, ignoring James' huff, 'what was the name of the girl you snuck off with, anyway?'

'Olivine,' I said smugly. 'Olivine Marks.'

' _A name does not a person make,_ Padfoot,' Prongs sang. 'How about her personality?'

A wicked grin crept up my lips. 'I didn't want to get to _know_ her, Prongs,' I said. 'That wasn't the _point_.'

I NEVER REALLY liked my family. The mutual distaste grew into a mutual loathing as I got older, especially after I was Sorted into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin (while I might have been delighted by this particular twist of events, my parents were anything but. I got a Howler every day for _weeks_ ). But I did love my grandmother.

Melania, not Irma. Irma Crabbe was a bitter old bat that grew touchy and paranoid and died before my seventh birthday. Melania, though, she wasn't all bad. Oh, she was steeped in her prejudices, but they were softer than most. She thought 'Mudblood' was a dirty word, and never stooped to use it, though she still thought that Muggle-borns were intruders in a world they could never hope to understand.

'They don't belong with our kind, Sirius,' Melania would say. 'They don't know what we know. They don't know our centuries of history, or our ways, or our laws. They just sweep in and steal our jobs, our rights. They can go form their own civilisation someplace else. Our kinds simply shouldn't mix. It's not right.'

'But can't they learn?' I'd ask. 'They still have powers. Shouldn't they have the same rights as us?'

Her lips would twist. 'You'll learn,' she said, and always sounded far more certain than my mother or father ever did. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing I'd yet to sort out, and doubted I ever would.

Melania was soft in ways the rest of the Black family wasn't. She never thought the genocide of the Muggle-borns was warranted; she wanted to get rid of them without spilling blood. She hated Unforgivable curses and never used one in her life, and after she married my grandfather, she forbade him from ever using them. Though Father always said Granddad did anyway, and I was inclined to believe him.

She spent her days in solitude, knitting or reading or taking care of my father and Aunt Lucretia. Granddad was an old codger, and treated her quite terribly sometimes, but she loved him anyway, and he loved her. Marriages of love in the Black family were rare. More often than not they were about alliances and incest and blood purity, not romance.

Most everybody in the family preferred Reg to me, even in the early days, but Melania liked me better. 'They can have Regulus,' she'd say. 'I want my glossy-haired boy.' Merlin only knew why, but she loved me. She used to tell me stories about the old days, about her family history; stories of the MacMillans, not the Blacks, a slightly more respectable and less batshite mad family.

She used to say that I'd grow up to be a charmer. 'I can see it now,' she'd say. 'You look just like Ernest, and Agrippa knows he was a handsome man.' She'd fall quiet then, mulling this over, and decide silence was better than speaking.

She died when I was eleven, just after my Hogwarts letter had arrived. From old age, I imagine, but also from sadness. She loved her brother, Ernest MacMillan, more than just about anyone else—more than me, more than Granddad, more than my father or Aunt Lucretia. When he died, a little piece of her died, too, and after that it was just inevitably withering away, shriveled piece by shriveled piece.

Melania hated how we burned people off our tapestry. Said it wasn't right, that family was family no matter what. I liked that part about her. Not everybody in our family had the ability to love—my father never did, and my mother certainly didn't. Reg probably didn't either, though when I thought about that, I got a funny squeeze in my chest. But Melania, she was something special. She knew.

She never lived to see me Sorted into Gryffindor, and while I wasn't quite sure, I liked to think that she would've been proud. She always said that I was different from the others, but she never said it in a bad way, like the others did. She took my Muggle-born sympathising with a grain of salt, though she always firmly believed that one day, I'd change, realise the error of my ways. I supposed she'd still think that if she were alive today, because if there was one universal trait we Blacks all had in common, off the tree and on, married and by blood, we were set in our ways. Just because my ways were different didn't mean I was any less set in them.

I got my first girlfriend when I was twelve, about a year after Melania died. That was around the time that girls started to notice me—really notice me. My grandmother was right after all: I'd grow up to be a charmer. Whether I was a charmer like Ernest MacMillan I didn't know.

Sometimes I wondered if I, too, like the rest of my fucked-up family, had the inability to love. But then—thank Merlin—I remembered James, and Remus, and even Peter, though he irritated the shite out of me sometimes.

Romantic love, though, no such thing. Even have seen James' whinging over Lily Evans. (Who, by the way, wasn't even that impressive. Her tits weren't that large.)

It was hard, growing up in my family. Hard in ways you couldn't see until you were right there, nose pressed up against the glass. But Melania, at least until she died, always made it a little bit easier.

THE MORNING OF September first dawned sooner than I would've liked, harsh sunlight streaming through the windows of my bedroom at the Potters.

Someone threw open the door with a bang, all too energetic for this hour, in my opinion. 'Wake up, Padfoot!' James hollered, much louder than I thought was necessary. (At all. Ever. In any foreseeable circumstance.) 'We're going to be late!'

I picked up a pillow and hurled it at him. 'We will not be late, you bloody imbecile,' I muttered into my mattress, words muffled.

He laughed. 'Come on. Remus and Peter are already waiting for us at the station.'

'I fucking _hate_ you,' I grumbled, but got up, stretching, and looked around my room.

It was still odd, waking up here, so much different from the old Black house. The Potter home was always so much brighter than Grimmauld Place, the comparison striking. The Black house was all dark wallpaper and dingy floorboards; dust and spiders that scared the living shite out of me. The Potter house was light and airy, though exorbitantly large.

Our side of the Black family tended to be the poorer one, though we weren't hurting for money. Mother came from the really wealthy side, and most of that money had gone to Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella. I supposed what was left would go to Bellatrix and Narcissa now that they'd burnt Andromeda off the tree.

I hated Bellatrix. Narcissa was a cold bitch, but there was something fundamentally wrong about her sister. Though Merlin knew nobody in my family ever listened to me—that was why I was living with my best friend, after all. I'd managed to get burnt off the tree myself. (My proudest moment.)

I stumbled over to the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. I still looked like a Black, despite my best efforts to shove that part of my life away. Pale skin, coal-black hair and eye colouring. I averted my eyes away from my face and onto the hickey on my neck. _There. Focus on that._

Fifteen minutes later, I was downstairs, already dressed in my uniform, tugging at my tie with a stifled feeling, and Euphemia was herding us over to the Floo with our trunks and James' owl.

'Let's go, come on,' Euphemia said, frowning. Prongs' mother always looked quite harried, though I didn't know what she had to be harried about. She lived in a bloody mansion with about five House Elves tripping over themselves to take care of her every little whim, for Agrippa's sake.

Fleamont came out and gave James a hug goodbye, and then surprised me by giving me one as well. I'd never really been hugged before, not since Melania years ago. The girls I dated usually wanted to do things other than hug (a mutual desire) and my parents would never stoop to such lows, so it was kind of a foreign feeling.

For a moment I just stood stiffly before awkwardly patting Fleamont on the back. He chuckled. 'Look out for James, will you?' he said.

'He should be looking out for me, but I'll do my best, sir,' I said, forcing a smile.

'Come on, Padfoot,' James said impatiently, tapping his foot.

I shook off the strange sensation and stood by his side, giving him an odd look. Sometimes I didn't think James knew how lucky he was, especially when it came to Euphemia and Fleamont. What I wouldn't give to have parents like his.

THE PLATFORM WAS crowded, and we were late, much to Prongs' chagrin. We barely had time to hand our trunks to the porter and hop aboard the train before we were off, the Express chugging away merrily.

My fingers were itching for a cigarette, and I told James as much, but he appeared unsympathetic, apparently still brassed off from the night before. 'I told you not to start smoking those things,' he said. 'They're nothing but trouble.'

'Bugger off,' I muttered crossly. 'I'll just go to the back of the train and smoke one, you arsehole.'

'Fine by me.' He turned around and walked away, shoulders tense.

I was probably going to have to deal with Prongs' mood later, but right then, I couldn't care less. I wanted a bloody cigarette, and I was tired. Besides which, I wasn't particularly looking forward to this school year, as I'd rather been having fun loafing around all summer.

I made my way through the train, shoving past third-years and cursing out a second-year that hardly came up to my shoulder in height. Merlin and Agrippa, it was boiling in the corridor. I didn't have the patience to slow down for stupid blighters.

While I was walking past, I saw Lyddie Simmons, her mate, Anelle Clearwater, and Anelle's boyfriend, Rick Edgecombe, all stuffed into one compartment. No Birdie, though. Absentmindedly, I wondered where she was, and then quickened my pace to avoid catching Simmons' eye.

Finally, I reached the back of the train, and twisted the doorknob. Outside, the air was crisp and clear, though the skies (unsurprisingly) held the promise of rain. The air was cold and refreshing, despite the fact that it whipped at my cheeks rather brutally.

The landscape made a pretty picture, I had to admit. Rolling hills, craggy rock, flocks of curly-haired sheep, black and white. I felt a kindred with the black ones, and mentally gave them my empathetic condolences.

I yanked out a pack of Newports and my wand from my back pocket, lighting the cig. I took a deep, steadying drag, closing my eyes as I did so. Ah. _Bliss._

'Black?'

I opened my eyes. Birdie stood in front of me, to the other side, her eyebrows creased. I must not have noticed her when I'd first stepped outside. Unlike me, she wasn't already in her uniform; she was still in Muggle clothes, which I thought was fairly idiotic of her. The little Death Eater clique at school would have no qualms about hexing her without the encouragement.

'Birdie,' I said, mouth curving around my cig. 'Fancy meeting you here.'

She smiled, though it looked forced, and I noticed that her eyes were red. 'You alright?' I asked. Which was a stupid question, really, as I hated it when people asked me that. If my eyes were red, it typically meant that I was not alright, but I didn't want other people getting involved in my business.

Birdie just shrugged. 'Not particularly.'

'Want to talk about it?' I said, inhaling. Another stupid question.

She tucked a stray curl of hair behind her ear. Her hair was really quite mad, I noticed, a mess of soil-colored curls. Nice, and soft-looking, though I preferred blondes. 'Not much to tell,' she said, raising her voice over the wind.

'No?' I exhaled a plume of gray smoke that was promptly grabbed by the Scottish air within seconds.

'No. I doubt you'd understand, anyway.'

I lifted one shoulder. 'Maybe. Maybe not.'

Birdie leaned over on the rail, propping herself up on her forearms. Looking at her, the first word that came to mind was sad. She seemed melancholy, and a little out of place, and lost. Like she didn't quite know where she was going, or where she fit in.

I pulled out my pack of Newports and extended a cigarette to her. 'Want one?' I said. 'I've found that they make life significantly more bearable.'

She laughed a little at that one. 'You and my mother are of the same mind about that,' she said. 'But no, thank you.'

'Suit yourself.' I slid it back inside and stuffed the box back into my pocket. 'Why are you out here, anyway?'

'To ponder the mysteries of life,' she said sardonically, a bitter quirk to her lips. 'Why else?'

'I'm just out here to smoke a bloody cig,' I said. 'Don't go putting words in my mouth. I was actually hoping to steer clear of philosophy.'

She gave a real smile at that one. 'No Socrates for you?'

'No, thanks. I prefer questions that have answers.'

'Not an eternal-inquiry kind of guy?'

'No.' I took another drag. 'Life is complicated enough. If you can find an answer to a question, use it.'

'What if that answer isn't the right one?'

'Then you change it later on.'

'Until you're too set to change much of anything,' she pointed out. 'And then you're stuck, all because you couldn't handle the implications of an open-ended thought.'

I stared at her. 'I said I _didn't_ want to philosophise, you madwoman.'

Birdie threw back her head and laughed. She had a nice-sounding laugh. It wasn't like the laughs of most girls I dated—high, tittering, carefree and elegant. It was a snorting belly laugh, a real laugh, not made to be attractive or alluring. I found that I liked it much better.

I dropped my cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of my shoe, ashes scattering in the wind. I pulled out my pack, debating whether or not I should have another one. I wanted to, but then again…

'Don't.' Birdie answered for me before I really had a chance to think it over.

I arch an eyebrow. 'Don't?'

'Don't. I see it in your eyes. Don't have another one.'

I grinned. 'Not a fan of cigarettes?'

'Not a fan of fire,' she corrected, shuddering. 'I hate fire.'

'Why?'

She hesitated. 'It's a long story,' she said finally.

'Oh, yeah? I've got time.'

'It's a personal story,' she amended.

'Meaning I'm not going to get an answer?'

'Brilliant deduction, Holmes.'

'Sardonic, aren't you?' I said. 'And awfully cynical.'

'If you knew where I came from, you'd be cynical, too.'

'Love, please. Haven't you heard my little sordid tale of woe?'

She shook her head. 'I guarantee you haven't heard mine. You might come from a shit home, but I guarantee our shit homes are different. _All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'_

' _Anna Karenina_ ,' I said.

She looked shocked. 'You read Tolstoy?'

'Don't look so surprised.'

'I don't know. I never pictured you as the kind of guy that reads Tolstoy.' She paused. 'You're much different than I expected, actually.'

'Oh?'

'The rest of your group I've got mostly figured out,' she said. 'Potter's the spoiled prankster, Peter's the pity addition, and Remus is the half-decent one.'

'How did you originally have me pegged?' I asked, curious.

'A womanising, arrogant, trigger-happy delinquent,' she said, without hesitation.

I chuckled. 'You don't have a very high opinion of me, do you?'

'No. I don't.'

''Least you're honest.'

'The question is,' she said, eying me speculatively, 'whether or not my original view was the _right_ one.'

'Well, you're not wrong about the rest of them,' I said.

'And you?'

'I can't speak for myself. You'll have to make up your own opinion about me.'

'Always dangerous,' she said, smiling a little. She had a nice smile, too. She was one of those girl-next-door types that wasn't especially beautiful, or stunning, or anything. Everything about her was just nice and pleasant, from her bronzed skin to her smile to her hair to her warm, dark eyes.

'What can I say? I like to live on the knife's edge.'

She appraised me, the silence dragging on for a moment. 'Thanks,' she said finally, her voice quiet.

'For what?'

'I was in kind of a downtrodden mood when I came out here,' she said.

 _Yeah,_ I thought. _I noticed._

'But you made me feel better. So thank you.'

I gave her a nod. 'Sure.'

'You're not half as crazy as everyone always says you are, either,' she said.

'Ah, but love, you've just met me. I'm an absolute lunatic.'

'Maybe in some respects,' she admitted. 'But not where it counts, I don't think.'

'And where does it count?'

She reached over, tapping my chest, right where my heart (allegedly) should be. 'Here,' she said. She smelled nice, too. Like some sort of flower. 'Right here.'

Birdie stepped back, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. 'Nice talking to you, Black,' she said. Before I could so much as nod back, she had stepped back into the train, and I was left to ponder the mysteries of life by myself.

As it turned out, it wasn't near as fun with one person as it had been with two. I frowned.

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 **A/N: Hope you all enjoyed it! Please review and let me know what you thought!**


	3. Chapter 3: Why Didn't You Listen?

**A/N: Here we go with Chapter 3 (with more plot than exposition). Thanks to** ** _Guest_** **and** ** _AnnieBugg_** **for reviewing-you guys make my day, seriously. More thanks go to my awesome beta-reader, Rosestream!**

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Chapter 3

 **Why Didn't You Listen?**

 _Birdie_

WHEN I GOT back to our compartment, Lyddie and Anelle were already arguing, Rick looking on disinterestedly, his nose buried in a dusty old tome.

For a moment, I stood in the doorway. The compartment was small, the glass door smudged by first-years' grubby hands, the windowpanes streaked with rain. The seats were hard and uncomfortable, the lumpy sort hardly ideal for a long train ride. I grimaced.

"You've got to be kidding me, Lyddie," Anelle was saying, shaking her head. "You have got to stop it with this Sirius Black fixation."

"Never," she said stubbornly.

"He's an absolute loon," Anelle argued. "The side effects of incest, and all. Have you ever seen the Black family tree? Half the women in their family are born a Black and married a Black."

"Sirius is stronger for having survived it."

"You don't even know Black, Lyddie," Rick said in a bored tone, licking his finger and turning the page.

"Of course I do. We sat next to each other in Divination last year. I loaned him three quills and five pieces of parchment."

"That's called stalking, honey."

"I don't stalk him!" Lyddie cried.

I slid open the door to the compartment. Anelle flicked her gaze up, and at once melted into a puddle of relief. "Birdie! Finally, someone with some common sense."

"Sitting right here," Rick said beside her, though he didn't appear particularly bothered to me.

"Hush, Rick. You're hardly even a part of the conversation." Anelle swatted his shoulder. "Anyway, Birdie, can you please tell Lyddie that she's being completely mad?"

I massaged my temples and sat down next to Lyddie. "I don't know, Nellie. I'm kind of tired, to tell you the truth."

"Oh, come on. It'll only take a moment."

"She's tired," Lyddie said scathingly. "Leave her be, Anelle."

I held up a hand. "Calm down." I closed my eyes. "Firstly," I said, "Lyddie isn't technically stalking him, though her records of the number of things he's borrowed is disconcerting, to say the least. Secondly, Black isn't completely crazy. Thirdly, Lyddie, I don't think this complete obsession that you've got is healthy. A crush is one thing. This is something else entirely."

"And thus wisdom spoke," Rick said dryly, turning the page again.

Lyddie stuck her tongue out at me. "Spoilsport."

"Anyway, Birdie," Anelle said, "do you know why this cat cage is in our compartment?" She gestured over to a plastic cat carrier. Tufts of pale fur poked out through the metal grate, and I glimpsed a glitter of amber eyes.

My cheeks flushed. "Um…" I scratched the back of my neck.

"What did you do?" she said, sounding weary.

"I… got a cat."

Rick lifted his head from the page for the first time since I had entered the room. "What?"

"I don't know," I said, neck burning. "I just felt like it was the right thing to do at the time. I was walking past the store, and I just saw this old cat in the window, and well… I don't know. It just felt right."

Anelle sighed, pursing her lips. "Let me see him, then." She leaned over and picked up the cat carrier and opened the door, reaching inside and pulling out a large, fluffy white cat. He settled into her lap and started purring contentedly. "He's sweet, at least. What did you name him?"

"Phoebe," I said. "It's a girl, actually."

"You know, white cats are supposed to be bad luck," Rick said, petting Phoebe's head.

"I thought that was black cats," I said, confused.

"That's in America," Lyddie answered. "Black cats in America are bad luck, but here black cats are good luck. White cats are mostly bad luck."

"Right," I said. "Well, she does appear to be a pretty fearsome beast."

Phoebe had turned over on her back, head lolled back, paws up in the air, purr loud as a lawnmower.

"She'll probably be a nice addition to the dorm, actually," Anelle said, head cocked in thought. "Be nice to have a cat around."

"So long as Willa Spinnet and Lucy Marsh don't throw a fit, that is," Lyddie said. "Cows. How long do you think it'll take Donna Creevey to completely wreck the dormitory this year in a mad, panicky conniption? I give it until October, tops."

"That's not very nice, Lyddie," Anelle said reprovingly.

"Yeah, well, neither is sharing a dorm with Donna."

I sighed. It was nice being back with my friends, but they got hard to handle sometimes, with Rick's inattentiveness, Lyddie's grumbles, and Anelle's pointy stick up her ass. For a minute, I thought about telling them the truth—that I hadn't wanted to come back to Hogwarts at all this year—but then thought better of it. No point now.

I'd never really been close to my friends, not in the way I guessed other people were. They didn't know about my mother, or about my father. They didn't even know much about Alex, except that he was my brother and we exchanged notes occasionally; I'd just never told them. I never opened up to anyone, preferring to stay sealed shut as a clam, even when I was around Alex. And if you couldn't share things with your twin, who could you share them with?

I looked around at my friends, at petite Lyddie with her blonde pigtails and freckles, examining her bright pink fingernails, at Rick with his shaggy mess of copper curls, at Anelle and her perfectly-straightened locks and perfectly-applied makeup, not so much as a stray hair out of place.

They were my friends, I supposed, in a detached sort of way. But not really.

The closest I'd come to opening up was the conversation with Sirius Black just a few minutes ago, and I was beginning to suspect that I'd underestimated him in more ways than one. He wasn't all bad, Black, he really wasn't. At least I thought so.

"Birdie?" Anelle was peering over at me concernedly. "What is it?"

I forced a smile. "Nothing," I said. "Nothing at all."

IT WAS POURING down rain by the time the Express rolled to a stop at the castle, the skies dark and foreboding. I heard Hagrid's voice rising over the mass of chaos and rolling waves of thunder—"Firs' years! Firs' years, this way!"—and Anelle, Rick, Lyddie, and I all scrambled to one of the carriages, rain soaking through our clothes, skin, and into our bones.

Lyddie boarded first, shoving us all aside, and then Anelle, and then Rick. But I was left out in the rain for a minute, staring at the Thestrals. One rolled its eye back and stared at me, snorting once and pounding its foot into the ground. I swallowed and heaved myself into the carriage, taking Rick's proffered hand.

The rickety carriage rumbled over the muddy roads with some difficulty before rolling to a stop mere minutes after we had started moving. The four of us exchanged glances.

"We can't be there yet," Anelle said.

"I'll go and check," I offered, but Lyddie's hand landed on my arm.

"Wait," she said, chewing her lower lip. "Not… not yet. What if something's out there? What if we're supposed to wait in the carriage?"

"It'll be fine, Lyddie," I said. "It's better than just sitting here, after all, isn't it?" She didn't look so sure, but without waiting for an answer, I opened the door and stepped outside, landing with a _splurgh_ in the mud.

"Ugh," I said, shaking clods of wet dirt off my shoe. Shading my eyes, I could see other people stepping out of their carriages, craning their necks. There was Lily Evans, her scarlet hair pulled up in a tight, uniform ponytail, and beside her a shivering Mary Cattermole. There was Alice Prewett, a seventh-year, her brow furrowed. I saw three out of four Marauders, as well, though it looked as if Pettigrew had stayed behind in the carriage.

"What the hell is going on?" I heard someone say, voice thick with disgust. I turned around to see Rabastan Lestrange kicking his carriage savagely, his face contorted into an ugly picture of hate. He looked up and saw me staring, onyx pupils glittering. "What are you looking at, you filthy Mudblood?" he sneered.

"Go fuck yourself, Lestrange," someone behind me said, and I felt a hand close around my elbow in a vice-like grip. Small, fair hand, slightly freckled, with green fingernails. Lily Evans stood by my side, her eyes narrowed to slits, wand out, the tip glowing.

Lestrange took out his own wand, stretching it out toward her. "Make me, dirty little cu—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Lily shouted, _"Engorgio Skullus!"_

He doubled over, groaning, and I saw his head begin to grow, apparently painfully. His knees sank into the mud, and Lily wasted no time in whisking the both of us away, ducking behind a carriage.

Her eyes assessed me. "You alright, Birdie?"

"Yeah. I just…" I stared. Lily and I had never been on good terms, exactly; she was a bit melodramatic and self-righteous for me to handle, and it wasn't as if we ran in the same circles. She was in Gryffindor, and hung around with Mary Cattermole and Nia Robins. I didn't dislike her—not like I had a bit with Black—but I wasn't exactly her biggest fan, either.

She seemed to guess my train of thought and smiled. "We Muggle-borns have to stick together, yeah?"

"Thanks," I said, meaning it.

"Anytime." She released my arm. "Anyway, do you know what the hell is going on? It's not exactly sunny weather out here, and I wouldn't mind sitting down to a brilliant feast right about now."

"I've got not idea," I said. "I came out to see what was going on."

She pursed her lips. "Hm. Well, come with me. It's not safe to be out by yourself around here, especially with all these Death Eaters-to-be walking around."

Lily walked over to the carriage where her friends were waiting, their sopping robes clinging to their skin. I rose a hand and waved weakly, and Mary and Nia both gave me a nod in reply. My teeth began to chatter.

Suddenly, Mary clapped a hand to her mouth. "Merlin and Agrippa," she whispered.

Our heads whipped around, eyes following her empty gaze, and we each sucked in a sharp breath in unison. There, in the sky, floating like a wisp of smoke, was the Dark Mark, skull and serpent, mouth open in a silent cackle. I didn't know how long it had been there—if it had just arrived, or if it had always been floating, an unseen warning above our heads—but we all saw it now.

Lightning flashed across the sky. Someone screamed.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I was running forward, away, Lily calling, "Birdie, wait!"

My ears were numb to her cries. I nearly fell forward as I sprinted through the muck, tearing up shoots of grass. It was absolute mayhem—I saw a short girl that couldn't have been older than thirteen start to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks in tandem with the raindrops, and a second-year boy crouching by the wheels of his carriage, hands over his ears, muttering to himself. And they weren't alone.

I ran past carriage upon carriage, finally skidding to a stop when I reached the forefront of the train. And then I saw why the Thestrals had halted.

There was a mud-spattered body lying on the road.

It was a girl, one I didn't recognize, her eyes wide open and blank and blue, her mouth ajar, prone body spread-eagle. She seemed to be frozen, that girl, as if she'd died staring up at the sky, seconds away from screaming for help.

The Dark Mark was beginning to fade, but even I knew what this meant. Even I knew what had been done to her.

A crowd began to form around the body, screams and shouts intensifying. I felt all of the blood rush from my cheeks, heard my heartbeat. _Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump._

 _Thump, thump, thump, thump._

 _Thump, thump, thump, thump._

It was one of those surreal moments where I felt myself floating outside of my body, detached from myself. It was as if I were looking down from the trees, seeing myself sway on my feet, seeing my hand reach out and grapple at air to steady myself. The world started to darken, the edges of my vision dimming…

And then I forced myself back into my body, grounded my heartbeat, digging my nails deep enough into my palms to leave bloody crescent-shaped marks. Nobody was approaching the body. Nobody was doing what needed to be done.

I took a step forward, hesitant at first, and then another, and another. _Keep moving, Birdie. Breathe. In, out. Thump-thump-thump-thump._ People were crying out, shouting my name, but it was like I was in a tunnel, and their voices were echoing off the stone walls, reverberating again and again until the sounds were unrecognizable.

I fell short when I neared the girl. God, she was so young; she couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve.

I knelt down on the ground, my skirt sinking into the mud. Reaching out with my index and middle fingers, I placed them under her chin, feeling for a pulse.

Nothing. She was like a mannequin: cold, lifeless, and empty.

On shaky legs, I pushed myself up. I realized in a sort of detached way that my cheeks were wet. People were staring at me, completely mute. No one spoke. Even the hysterical weepers had stopped, waiting for my next words, hinged on silence.

I saw Lily Evans at the forefront, her face white as double-burnt ashes, and Mary Cattermole beside her, hand still clapped to her mouth. There was James Potter, mouth hanging open in horror, and Remus Lupin, turning away from the scene. There were Avery and Mulciber and Snape and Lestrange and the rest of the Death Eaters hanging near the periphery. They looked shocked, but not horrified; not displeased.

I didn't feel angry at that. I supposed I should have, but all I felt was sadness. Not even at them, per se, but at the world in general. How could the universe have been so cruel as to make people who didn't even shudder at the body of a dead twelve-year-old girl?

And there was Sirius Black, leaning against the thick trunk of a pine tree, arms crossed. His mouth was twisted down, and while he looked upset, he didn't look surprised. Everybody else at least looked taken aback, but he… It was as if he was used to this; this brute display of coarse despicableness.

 _Oh, Alex. Why didn't you listen to me? Why didn't you listen to me when I told you I shouldn't come back this year? Why, why, why?_

I took a deep breath. So many eyes on me. So many things to say.

Where did someone go from here? How did you step forward? How do you scrape out a meager living in the midst of a tragedy?

"She's dead," I told them—all of them, from self-righteous Lily Evans to silly Donna Creevey to pampered James Potter to the hateful Death Eaters to Sirius Black, standing against that tree, watching me with impenetrable slate-gray eyes.

And then I said it again, to let it sink in, so that everybody would know just what had happened here on this stormy day in September, when we were all too busy complaining about the rain and cold to care about much else. "She's dead."

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 **A/N: I hope you all enjoyed it! Please, please review to let me know what you think!**


	4. Chapter 4: Mercury and Quicksilver

**A/N: Here we go with chapter 4! Thanks go to reviewers and my awesome beta, Rosestream!**

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Chapter 4

 **Mercury and Quicksilver**

 _Sirius_

THE GREAT HALL seemed colder this year than most, though it might have been the mood rather than the temperature. The candles flickered with ice-blue flame, the benches scraped against the ground in silence. The Great Hall was never quiet, not even at five o'clock in the morning. Now it was hushed enough to hear Eloise Pemberton drop her pencil with a clatter over at the Hufflepuff table.

Hagrid had come looking for us when it became apparent that something was stalling the main student body. He'd found us standing there on the road, Birdie Elian over a dead body, white as a sheet. _She's dead._

Of course, then Hagrid had had a whole other slew of problems to deal with. He'd stared at the body for a long time, huge shoulders heaving up and down, up and down, before gingerly picking up the girl as if she weighed nothing, wrapping her in his enormous coat, and moving her to the side, shouting for everybody to get back in the carriages.

For a moment, I'd just stood there, watching Birdie. She had been the one brave enough to walk forward and check for a pulse. And she wasn't a Gryffindor, either.

Then James' hand fell on my shoulder, Remus' head hanging low a few feet away, and we walked back to our carriage in silence, where cowardly Wormtail had remained.

'You lot go out,' Peter had said, eyes more watery and squinty than ever. 'I'll just stay here.'

 _Birdie got your share of Gryffindor courage today, Pete_ , I thought, watching her walk back to her own carriage alone. She'd been the only one of her group to come out. I pitied her now; she had to go back and tell her friends why we'd stopped.

Birdie didn't look scared, though, and she wasn't a sobbing disaster. She was pale, her mouth set, and she looked sort of drained, but she wasn't falling to pieces. She was made of stronger stuff, and I thought about what she'd said earlier, about her own sorrowful backstory, and just what she was hiding behind her schooled features.

She stopped just before the carriage, and her hand went out and stroked the Thestral's neck. I stiffened. So she saw them too. Interesting.

I wondered if I should go over and talk to her, but decided against it. She leant her head against the Thestral's fleshless neck, and then straightened, walking over and opening the door, pulling herself into the carriage.

Remus, James, and I arrived at our own carriage and heaved ourselves in. Peter was staring at us, wide-eyed, chewing his fingernails. 'Well?' he said. 'What happened? I heard screaming.'

The three of us sat down heavily. It was Remus who answered. 'There was a dead body on the road.'

Peter's eyes widened. 'No shit. Who was it?'

I narrowed my eyes at him. He didn't seem particularly concerned. He seemed almost… awed by the idea. Like the goriness of it all amused him.

'We don't know,' James said, head in his hands.

I fumbled in my back pocket for a cigarette and lit it with my wand. For once, in the silence that descended in the carriage, no one cared that I lit up in a confined space. The smoke settled like roaming thoughts put to rest.

MCGONAGALL MET US at the looming oak doors, her face grave. She clearly knew what had happened—by now, I imagined most everyone did—but she still waved us on into the Great Hall. Students exchanged disbelieving glances. No one much felt like feasting.

We filed into the frigid Great Hall, wet and sombre. The faculty table still held most of its members, though they all looked grim, and most had their head bowed. Dumbledore sat erect, back straight, his eyes focused on some distant point far above us.

After we had all gotten seated, Dumbledore rose. He put his hands on the lectern and sighed heavily, pushing his glasses up on his nose. 'Students,' he said.

'I come to you today with a speech not of joy, but of sorrow.' He looked at each and every one of us, eyes resting on every student. 'There has been a murder at this school.'

An audible gasp ricocheted from the corner where the first years stood, lined up in a neat, orderly row.

'I do not know how the culprit forced their way through the barriers, but I can assure each and every one of you that measures will be taken. The Ministry has been notified, and there will be representatives at this school within the hour, and I imagine'—here his lips thinned—'enforcement.'

'Dementors,' James whispered behind me. A shiver ran down my spine. I bloody hated Dementors.

'The victim in question was Marie Rosenberg, a second-year at our school. Her parents have been alerted and are set to arrive tomorrow. I ask that anyone who sees Mr and Mrs Rosenberg offer their condolences, and treat them with the highest respect.

'These are dark times,' Dumbledore continued. 'But in dark times, we must muddle through, much as we do in any other sort of time. We cannot let Voldemort'—collectively, a sea of students flinched at the name—'win. So I ask all of you this year not to focus on your studies or your exams. Concern yourselves with those things; they are of course a priority at our school.

'But more than that, I ask that you remember to laugh. Remember to smile. Be alert, be watchful, and be cautious. But never forget to enjoy the little things. In the face of great disaster, small victories are forever important.'

Dumbledore lowered his head. 'I would now ask all of you,' he said, 'for a few moments of silence for Marie Rosenberg, a member of our fine school that left far before her time.'

Around the room, people stood. Not everyone—most of the Slytherin table remained seated—but around the room, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws rose, heads downturned. Some hands were clasped.

I caught a glimpse of Birdie Elian standing across the room. Her face was the same as before: drawn, wearied, but there were quiet tears slipping down her cheeks.

After what seemed like too little time, Dumbledore said, 'Please be seated.'

A ripple as three out of the four houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry took their seats.

'May I introduce the Head Students for this year,' Dumbledore said. 'Miss Alice Prewett, of Gryffindor'—a polite smattering of clapping from the stricken audience—'and Mr Darius Avery, of Slytherin.'

Only the Slytherins clapped. Most heads snapped up in horror. Whispers whipped through the students like wildfire. 'Avery? But he's…' 'Death Eater.' 'Almost confirmed…' 'Showing off his tattoo to everyone when he came of age last year…'

'Quiet, please,' Dumbledore said mildly.

'What the hell?' Remus muttered.

'Now, the Sorting ceremony,' he said, as if we just hadn't spent the last few minutes discussing a Death Eater for a Head Boy and poor, dead Marie Rosenberg. 'Please. Let the future generation join our ranks.'

LATER, BACK IN our dorm, we were sitting on our beds in silence. No one had really touched the feast at dinner, save for the Slytherins. The only noise in the hall at all could be heard from their table, echoing throughout the seemingly empty, lifeless cavern.

I stared up at my bed curtains, hands folded over my stomach. 'I didn't know her.'

'I did,' Remus said tiredly. 'I tutored her last year in Defence. Sweet, really. The kind of girl that wouldn't swat a housefly.'

'Was she a Muggle-born?' asked Peter curiously.

I didn't have to hear Remus's affirmation to know the truth. 'Yeah,' Remus said. 'She was a Muggle-born.'

'It's just so bloody unfair,' James said. 'That people like Marie Rosenberg get slaughtered, people that wouldn't hurt anybody, just because they weren't born with centuries of shite strapped to their backs.'

'Wonder who did it,' Peter mused curiously. 'D'you think it was a Death Eater? One at our school? I bet it was Mulciber. He was looking weird at dinner tonight, this twitchy thing going on with his eye-'

I shoved myself up on my forearms. 'Show some respect, Pete.' All three of them sat up to stare at me, but I shook my head and flattened my lips. 'What? Show some respect, for Merlin's sake.'

'I am showing respect,' said Peter, his voice small.

'No, you're not,' I muttered. 'You think you are, but you're not. And that's the real problem, isn't it?'

No one else said anything for awhile. Remus and James didn't contradict me; I had a feeling they agreed with me, though they didn't say as much out loud. We sat in silence, a candle flickering on my bedside table, rain dive-bombing the lead-paned windows. It made a rosy picture, all red bedspreads and bed curtains, yellow sheets, plush pillows and Oriental rugs, ornate, antique teak furniture.

Finally, James said, in a small voice, 'How are we supposed to go to class tomorrow? Just rub our eyes and wake up as if nothing's wrong?'

'How are we supposed to go on with our lives after something like this?' said Remus.

'That,' I said, 'is the million-bloody-dollar question nobody can seem to figure out.'

I DIDN'T SLEEP much that night, kept awake by the memory of Marie Rosenberg's empty eyes. Finally, around four o'clock in the morning, I dragged myself out of bed, tugged on a clean shirt and a pair of trousers, and jammed my feet into my trainers.

And then, without so much as a creak, I slipped down the dormitory stairs, into the common room, through the portrait hole, and into the deserted corridors of Hogwarts.

I didn't bother to bring the Map or the Invisibility Cloak. I didn't even pull my wand out of my back pocket. Instead, I waltzed through the halls aimlessly, sometimes pausing to descend a flight of stairs or take a turn. I knew Hogwarts better than I knew Grimmauld Place or the Potter mansion. I knew it better than I knew the back of my hand.

Eventually, I reached a drafty wooden door that led to the grounds and stepped outside. The grounds were quiet at night, a purple-blue sky speckled with drops of mercury hanging low over the rolling hills. The Great Lake looked like a silver dollar in the dark, the moon shining down soft and white.

I walked the grounds at night more than anyone knew—more than James, or Remus, or Peter, or even Filch. Sometimes it felt as if too many things were bouncing around in my head, and the only way to clear it was to take a long, refreshing walk. Even in mid-January.

But this was the first night of September (second morning?) and, while a bit cold and marshy, the rain had stopped, though the remainder slowly trickled downhill, pooling in grooves in the turf and slithering into the Great Lake.

The only person I'd ever come out here with was Lennie, back in fourth-year when the two of us were still a couple. We'd hooked up a few times last year, but nothing like it had been. I didn't think anything could ever imitate the madness of fourth-year.

The only reason Lennie and I had worked in the first place was because we were both so similar. She was a Gryffindor, like me, and came from a pure-blood family, though hers was of the less-barmy variety. She was pretty, and she knew it, with blonde curls and pale blue eyes. She used her looks to her advantage—she'd probably shagged as many people as I over the years, no easy feat.

But it had been mercurial, right from the start. Marlene McKinnon was like quicksilver; fast-moving, turning on me and away from me in a hairsbreadth. Our agreement had started out mutual and fleeting. Fourth-year was when Reg started talking about becoming a Death Eater, and I wasn't taking it so well. Back then, I still had hope that he'd change.

He never would. I knew that now. Like I said before: we Blacks are set in stone, imprisoned in marble and granite. It takes a stronger chisel than I had to break my brother from his shiny alabaster coffin.

I never knew if Lennie had a reason for coming to me, too, though I supposed it didn't matter in the end. Eventually, we were shagging on a regular basis, and that turned into some shambled semblance of a relationship.

But a relationship built like that isn't built to last. Sooner or later, the fraying threads became gaping holes, and our house of cards came tumbling down. Two opposite forces of mercury don't mesh well together. I didn't have to be a Muggle chemist to know that.

That was the first and only time my heart had been broken a little by a girl, but I didn't think it was love. Lennie did; she'd told me so herself in May of fourth-year, and it had been the reason we split. Neither of us believed in love, or so we thought. But I had been her exception, even if she wasn't mine.

We'd met up a few times in the fall of the fifth year, but after the disaster over winter hols and everything that followed, we never got together again, for sex or for love. Somewhere along the line, it became the latter for her, and I while I fancied her something awful, for me it wasn't love, and it never would be.

Probably. That's what I thought most days, anyway. But others…

Regardless, Lennie had been the only one that I'd taken with me once or twice. She'd look at me funny, cock her head, and take my hand, walking with me in silence. She never opened her mouth, never said a word. She was just there, always at my left-hand side, and I knew that should I ever need her, I wouldn't even have to ask.

Maybe this would have been a good thing, even vital, for somebody else. But I had learned a long time ago how to not need anyone, except for maybe Prongs. Lennie came too late to the game. By that point, I was already closed off and locked up, no key to be found.

The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon by the time I made my way back to the castle, an outline of the trees visible against a periwinkle horizon. My trousers were stained with mud and dirt and Merlin knew what else, and I was sure my hair was rumpled and my formerly clean shirt wrinkled, but I didn't much care. I was able to breathe again, and that was what mattered.

I took a back route up to the portrait hole, one that passed by the Hospital Wing. It must've been later than I thought, or I wasn't the only resident insomniac, because people were already bustling about, the castle bursting with (albeit subdued) life.

As I passed by the Hospital Wing, I stopped and peered inside. Pomfrey was talking to a middle-aged couple. The man had a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles shoved onto his crooked nose, and the woman was plump, dressed in a Muggle house dress with low black pumps. They looked so ordinary, so out-of-place in Hogwarts. The man probably worked in a bank and the woman probably stayed at home. There was a young girl standing near, as well, fair hair and enormous gray eyes welled with tears.

Beside the trio of Muggles was a hospital cot. Some bulky shape was lying on top, covered in a crisp white sheet. And then I knew.

These were the Rosenbergs. The plain middle-aged couple were probably her parents, the girl her sister.

All of a sudden, the woman let out a horrible, terrible cry, one that grated on my ears and made my heart twist painfully in my chest. She turned and buried her face in her husband's chest. The girl clapped a hand to her mouth, starting to sob horribly; heavily; painfully. The man, though, the father, he was the worst of all. He looked empty as if someone had reached inside his chest and ripped out his heart. He just stared at Pomfrey, eyes blank, face as white as the sheet his dead daughter had been wrapped in.

For a moment, I thought about going inside, offering my condolences, but then I shook my head. We all had our own grief to deal with. I didn't want them involved in mine any more than they wanted me in theirs.

Grief was a strange thing. It came to everybody, good and bad, young and old, deserving and undeserving. Its cure wasn't to grin and bear it, or to work through it. Grief's only cure was learning to adjust to the extra weight strapped to your back.

I walked on.

'DOUBLE DEFENCE WITH the Ravenclaws,' I said, skimming my schedule. 'Well, at least it's something I know. We ought to be able to put the bookish Ravenclaws in their bloody place for once.'

'Oh, please,' said James, taking a bite of buttered toast. 'We all know Moony and Evans are at the top of the class, and you and I aren't far behind.'

'That's true,' I said, mulling it over thoughtfully. 'Too bad Pete's the one taking down the collective IQ of the group.'

'Padfoot.'

I shrugged. 'I speak the truth, Prongs.'

'I didn't say you weren't. That's not the point.' James took a swig of pumpkin juice. The two of us were both sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, scarfing down a quick breakfast and reviewing our schedules. 'He's pretty upset about what you said last night, you know.'

'Who? Peter?'

'No, your barmy great uncle. Yes, Peter.'

'You never know. Old Uncle Lycoris had a spectacular knack for causing trouble from his grave.'

James rolled his eyes heavenward. 'Look, Padfoot, at least try to be civil, alright? Pete's our friend. Restrain the hostilities.'

'I'll restrain them as soon as he doesn't deserve them, and not a second sooner,' I said. 'I'm not about to baby him.'

'He shouldn't have to put up with a bashing from his mate,' James pointed out.

'If it really bothers him that much, he can come and talk to me about it.' I speared a sausage with my fork and gestured as I talked. 'He's sixteen, not four, for Merlin's sake.'

James groaned. 'Pete's sensitive. Can't you just talk to him?'

'No.' I swallowed a bite of egg. 'I can, however, continue making snide comments until it inevitably becomes an issue.'

'That's what I was afraid of.'

As we were talking, Lily Evans and her mates, Mary Cattermole and Nia Robins, walked by. 'Hey, Evans,' James called, more half-heartedly than anything else. 'How were your summer hols?'

She walked by without any more response than a flick of her hair.

His shoulders slumped. 'Can't say I expected much more, really.'

I shook my head. 'Why do you bother? You know that plenty of other birds would be more than pleased to date you, right?'

He shrugged. 'Sometimes it's nice for people to see the worst in you, too. Or… Something like that.' He scrunched up his nose. 'That didn't sound right, did it? Eh. I never claimed to make sense.'

'No,' I said, and for some reason, Birdie's face popped into my head. 'It makes perfect sense, actually.' Clearing my throat, my eyes skirted around the hall, looking for Birdie. Absentmindedly, I wondered if she, too, had had trouble sleeping the night before. 'Have you seen Elian this morning?'

'That Ravenclaw we bumped in Diagon Alley?'

'Yeah. I met up with her on the train, actually.'

'When was this?'

'I went to go have a cigarette on the back and she was there. Don't know why, really, though her eyes were red.' I screwed up my face in thought. 'She's an alright bird, actually. I thought she'd be kind of prudish and Prefect-ish, but she's not. Not really, anyway.'

James studied me for a moment. 'Do you fancy her?'

'What? No. No offence, but she's not exactly my type. I prefer my girls to be big-breasted and blonde, and she's neither.'

'Love isn't always superficial,' said James.

I choked on my tea. 'Who said anything about love?'

'I'm just saying,' he said. 'Fancying somebody, then. It's not always about looks.'

I arched an eyebrow doubtfully. 'You're telling me that if Evans looked like Frida Kahlo, you'd still be after her?'

'Maybe. You never know,' he said. 'It just depends.'

'You know what I think?' I mumbled around a bite of sausage, spewing spit everywhere. 'I think you're full of shite.'

James laughed. 'Think all you like, Padfoot. You always do. Remember that time—'

'There she is,' I said suddenly. Birdie walked into the Hall, hugging a Muggle book to her chest, something with an unfamiliar title. She looked pale and wan, her messy curls pinned up, her lips bleached of colour, but she was standing straight.

'Wanker. You just completely cut me off.'

'I wonder what book she's reading,' I muttered, more to myself than to Prongs.

He followed my gaze to where Birdie was sitting down beside Lyddie Simmons, putting a plain slice of wheat toast on her plate and pouring herself a cup of coffee. In one deft movement, she picked up her toast with one hand and her book with the other, flipping open to her page with her left hand. It was practised, as if she'd done it many times before.

'You know,' James said, wrenching my attention back to him, 'I'm not the only one full of shite.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'If you really can't figure it out, then I'm not telling you.'

I groaned, downing the last bit of tea and rising to my feet. 'Sometimes, Prongs, you are truly a rubbish prig of a mate. You know that?'

'I do, as a matter of fact,' he said, standing beside me. 'Ready to head to Potions?'

'Ready as I'll ever be.'

Before we left, as I slung my satchel over my shoulder, I caught one last glimpse of Birdie. She was watching me, too, her eyes lingering on me instead of on her book. When she caught eye contact, she blushed and turned back to her book, but I kept my gaze pinned on her a moment longer before turning away.

* * *

 **A/N: Please review! ;)**


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